STEM

It’s National Engineers Week (February 17-23) and here’s a shout out to our talented Bishop-Wisecarver engineers who design our products, work with customers to get exactly the right solution for their project and help take linear motion to the next level. Day in and day out – they make a difference for us all.

The FIRST robotics challenge kicked off internationally in January and the excitement is still intense! As we enter our 12th year of sponsoring FIRST Robotics teams, we love seeing the students learn new skills and succeed in unexpected challenges. And when teams make it to the championships – that’s a bonus! Congrats to the all-female TigerBots of Notre Dame High School in Belmont, Calif. who made it to the world championships in 2018!

Power-Up! This was the theme of the 2017-18 First Robotics Competition and focused on two alliances of video game characters and their human operators who are trapped in an arcade game. Both alliances are working to defeat the boss in order to escape.

Bishop-Wisecarver is honored to be in our 11th year of sponsoring the FIRST Robotics Competition. This year, we are again sponsoring The Pirate Robolution team from Pittsburg High School in Pittsburg, Calif. – hometown of Bishop-Wisecarver!

Bishop-Wisecarver is honored to be in our 11th year of sponsoring the FIRST Robotics Competition. This year, we are again sponsoring The Fembots, an all-female team from St. Francis High School in Sacramento. Today, we catch up with Katie Klokkevold, a Senior and Co-Captain of the team. We asked Katie to give a one-word response to each of the terms below, followed by a short explanation. Take a few moments to read about the hard work and lessons learned by this amazing team.

Nearly a year ago, I wrote and recorded a KQED Radio Perspectives program segment entitled “What Manufacturing Needs”. In it, I tried to quickly address the problem of having a strong industry with solid indications of future growth, while projections show we will be short two million manufacturing workers in the next 10 years.

I asked the question: Why is U.S. production so short of these skilled workers?

In honor of this week’s focus on engineers, we are highlighting one of Bishop-Wisecarver’s long-term team members, Brian Burke, engineer extraordinaire and vital customer connection. Bishop-Wisecarver has earned the reputation of providing unmatched quality, reliability, service and engineering support for every stage of a customer’s design cycle. From product design to completion, Bishop-Wisecarver team members like Brian, work with customers to ensure we have solved their problem in the best way possible, and on time and on budget.

As part of The Manufacturing Institute’s STEP Ahead Honorees class of 2017, I recently attended a conference in Washington D.C. focused on women in manufacturing. Meetings, networking, dinners, ice breakers and tours of the amazing city were all geared towards our unusual group. While I’ve attended numerous tradeshow events and professional organization conferences, this was my first opportunity to be with a large number of women in my industry. What I discovered is already changing me personally and professionally and my “Three Rs of Learning at STEP Ahead” could do the same for you.

It’s no secret that women are greatly underrepresented in the world of manufacturing. In 1918, during World War I, women comprised 19% of the total manufacturing workforce. Today, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that while women represented nearly half of the total U.S. labor force (47%), they comprised less than a third (27%) of the manufacturing jobs in 2014. That is a meager 8% increase in the manufacturing industry in nearly 100 years.

Bishop-Wisecarver Group is sponsoring four high school groups in the 2017 FIRST competitions. Today, we catch up with three 9th grade members of the TigerBots: Jade Costello, Co-Leader of Build Team, Caitlin Wallace, Build Team Member and Vineela Vandanapu, Programming Team Member. We asked them to give a one word response to each of the terms below followed by a short explanation. Take a few moments to read about the hard work and lessons learned by these incredible students!